Universal Music-EMI Update: Where the Deal Stands Before Things Heat Up Next Week

While things have been a bit quiet recently around the Universal Music Group’s proposed acquisition of EMI, expect them to heat up toward the end of this week and especially after the Labor Day weekend.

Whether or not UMG will win approval should be decided by the end of September, according to sources.

As it stands, the only recent activity (apart from the deal being approved in Canada) occurred when Robert W. Goodlatte, R-Va., and Melvin L. Watt, respectively the chairman and ranking minority member of the Congressional Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet, sent a letter to the heads of the two majors involved in the deal — UMG chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge and EMI Group CEO Roger Faxon — and to Warner Music Group chairman Stephen Cooper, asking five questions about the merger, as first reported by the New York Times.